Help me understand Devastation

Classes Evoker
1

I like the concept of this class. A skill shot based DPS spec that is a dragon. It’s cool. The graphics of its abilities are nuts.

But I don’t understand the following:

  1. Why isn’t Quell 40 yards? It’s a ranged spec and this makes no sense. I get the idea that “nothing the class does is 40 yards except Breath” but it’s a basic thing QoL thing.

  2. Why is its defensive CD garbage? It needs a shield. I play my mage main, which is also a glass cannon, but the mage has actual CDs to cope with things. Verdant Embrace is OK but Emerald Blossom is junk even soloing. The other defensive it has, Rescue and Deep Breath’s refraction are tied to things that are clunky to use as Defensives. One is utility and the other is something you use rotationally.

  3. Disintegrate is all of its damage. It’s ridiculous. The damage distribution across its spells is crazy. Because there is none. Deep Breath can shine on some fights but others it is stuck on CD because to use it would be death. Other times it’s broken.

  4. For the love of God give it a threat drop. Take Voidscar 14 for example: the very first hallway the tank pulls down to the big ogre and the little guys have no minimum range on their bleed charge. You get blown to hell through Obsidian Scales and if you pop embrace with a DK tank you rip threat due to how they ramp. You have no means to do anything but run.

So here’s what I think:

  1. Quell should be 40 yards.

  2. Draconic Legacy also adds 10% avoidance.

  3. Buff Flameshaper and make Living Flame stop healing for it and become more central to the spec to at least offer an option to offer a less channel dependent play style. Likewise Pyre and 4/4 Apex would have more synergy as a true basis. The tier set is just pure blue flight too which is also kind of stupid and taking Salvo means you don’t get full Apex which smooths over the damage drop between burst phases.

  4. At least offer a talent for a threat drop. If it’s ok to have a very situational Oppressive Roar button then it should be OK to have a threat drop button that you can talent.

2 Likes
2

I think everyone was surprised at the most recent Disintegrate buffs. Wing Commander doubles down on our burst allowing for tank level threat. We should get Aug’s threat reduction talent as a passive.

Obsidian Scales is a really good defensive but we do need a little something else.

3 Likes
3

It’s embarrassing to say, I have brought a number of characters through the Silvermoon beginning battle, none died except the evoker. I just can’t get the hang of it. I died a couple times on other quests too. Today I have died 5 times. I never die on any of my other alts and there are a ton. Clearly it could just be not my style but I think they are squishy and the damage spells take WAAAY too long. Yes I know to stop some at one and others at two etc but that means I have to press a button twice where every other class presses it once. I love the idea of it but I haven’t figured out how to play it. I hope somebody who has answers your thread.

4

Evoker isn’t a class intended to face tank hits, that’s why they’re one of the most mobile casters in the game. Use hover to kite, mass disintigrate to slow, deep breath to stun and reposition.

There are two significant areas I see newer dev evokers mess up: deep breath and empowered spells. These are both critical components to the kit and needs to be utilized.

Deep breath is able to be cancelled with the manuverability scalecomnander talent by simply pressing the button again. While that does work, using a /cancelaura macro is much more reliable. Reason being is there is a short delay before you can press deep breath again to cancel. The macro makes using the ability so much more reliable as it stops you on a dime.

Also dont spend much time on your empowered spells since 90% of scenarios they should be used at rank 1. On a single target, I often see newer dev evokers upranking fire breath and eternity surge to 3 or 4 without knowing its significantly hurting their performance. Multi-target is different… the requirements change based on talents and target count.